MACSYMA timing

To: Guy.Steele at CMU-10A

Subject: MACSYMA timing

From: George J. Carrette <GJC at MIT-MC>

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1982 19:23:00 -0000

Cc: common-lisp at SU-AI

All I said was that Macsyma was running, and I felt I had to
do that because many people thought that NIL was not a working
language. I get all sorts of heckling from certain people anyway,
so a few extra unsupported pot-shots aren't going to bother me.
Also, I have limited time now to complete a paper on the timing
figures that JM wants me to submit to the conference on lisp
and applicable languages, taking place at CMU right? So you
get the picture.
But, OK, I'll give two timing figures, VAX-780 speed in % of KL-10.
Compiling "M:MAXII;NPARSE >" 48% of KL-10.
INTEGRATE(1/(X^3-1),X) 12% of KL-10.
Obviously the compiler is the most-used program in NIL, so it has been tuned.
Macsyma has not been tuned.
Note well, I say "Macsyma has not been tuned" not "NIL has not been tuned."
Why? Because NIL has been tuned, lots of design thought by many people,
and lots of work by RWK and RLB to provide fast lisp primitives in the VAX.
It is Macsyma which needs to be tuned for NIL. This may not be very
interesting! Purely source-level hacks. For example, the Franz people
maintain entirely seperate versions of large (multi-page)
functions from the core of Macsyma for the purpose
of making Macsyma run fast in Franz.
=> There is nothing wrong with this when it is worth the time saved
in solving the user's problems. I think for Macsyma it is worth it. <=
The LISPM didn't need special hacks though. This is interesting,
I think...
-gjc